If you didn’t hear about RSCON4, or if you were too busy to attend, don’t worry! All of the sessions were recorded. There are a few different ways to catch up on the sessions you missed. If you want to watch the full recording as if you were in the session (allows you to follow the chat), choose the Blackboard recording. Alternatively, you can listen to the session and view the presenter slides (MP4), or you can simply listen to the audio (MP3). Here are a few sessions that I think teachers of young learners may find particularly useful or interesting. These may even inspire you to do your own presentation at an upcoming e-conference! 
If you’re thinking of blogging with your young learners…
Presenter: Dina Doboru @dinadobrou
Session: New Kids On The Blog
English language teacher Dina Dobrou introduces how to start blogging with kids using Kidblog.org. She shows how she introduced the concept of blogging by starting out with “paper blogging”. I love how she uses Post-it notes for introducing the concept of commenting. Dina also covers Internet safety and handy hashtags for involving a larger community.
If you teach in a low-income area…(or any area!)
Presenter: Salome Thomas El @Principal_EL
Session: Closing Plenary – Immortality of Influence
“Every child deserves to know that there is at least one adult who is crazy about them.” (My personal favorite quote from the conference.)
If you’re looking for ways to spice up your reading lessons…
Presenter: James Taylor @theteacherjames
Session: Making the Most of Reading
James introduces fun ways to make bland readings more interesting! He also share interesting pre- and post-reading exercises, such as getting students to come up with the comprehension questions before reading, and rewriting the story by memory after reading. Beware of the monkeys in the background! James presented this session from his hotel room in Costa Rica.
If you know that kids matter, but you want to challenge them to find their genius…
Presenters: Angela Maiers @AngelaMaiers and Mark Moran @findingDulcinea
Session: Keynote – Choose2Matter
Give kids time to be messy! “It’s really messy solving problems. Adults don’t give enough time for the messiness.” Angela Maiers
If you want to see an example of how a young learner found her genius…
Presenter: Mallory Fundora (13-year-old Bammy Winner) @ProjectYesu
Session: Keynote – Project Yesu
“Isn’t that your role as a teacher? To find out what your students’ gifts and talents are… Some of my teachers are failing at this.” Mallory Fundora
If you need a pep talk about how much you matter…
Presenter: Cecilia Lemos @CeciELT
Session: I am NOT just a teacher.
“It’s okay to take pride in your students’ accomplishments. Acknowledge that you make a difference.” Cecilia Lemos
If you’ve ever wondered how much kids can learn independently…
Presenter: Sugata Mitra @Sugatam
Session: The Future of Learning
If you haven’t heard of the “Hole in the Wall” experiment, be sure to watch this session. It might surprise you what kids can do when teachers aren’t hovering.
And, if you want to check out other sessions by and for YL teachers that I haven’t watched yet…(Recordings here.)
- Icebreakers and warm-ups for all ages
- Magic tricks in EFL with young learners
- Surfing Safe on the Net
- ELT Sandbox – Promoting language learning through gaming
- How to use puppets to promote language learning
- Creativity with kids
I’d like to say a special thank you to the organizers and presenters of RSCON4. A special thanks goes out to Shelly Terrell who blogs for us here at Sprout English and over on our sister site, ESL-Library. We are so proud of you for what you accomplished this year. The speakers were fantastic. (#RSCON4 was trending on twitter!) This is truly the future of education, and it feels great to be connected with so many bright and caring teachers.
~ Cheers, Tara
Thanks for the mention Tara, and many thanks for coming to my session!
Of course, James! It was fun participating in the “I punched a bear” activity while listening to rowdy monkeys and cooking my Thanksgiving turkey.
Thank you so much for this useful post, Tara! It’s so helpful to have these recommendations from you since there were so many presenters at the conference. I’m excited to check out these sessions!